During his long, contentious, and controversial election campaign, the US president-elect Donald Trump made several promises about his foreign trade policies.
The War Cabinet
Apart from steps that Trump has already taken with regard to appointing very well-known China hawks, i.e., John Ratcliffe (to head the CIA), Pete Hegseth as secretary of defence, and Florida Congressman Michael Waltz as the national security adviser, his possible choice of Robert Lighthizer as his trade representative with a possible position in the Cabinet is going to make a major difference going forward. Lighthizer played a key role in Trump’s ‘trade war 1.o.’, helping to craft tariffs on US$380bn worth of Chinese goods. As reports in the mainstream US media show, Lighthizer & Co., are already preparing plans for actually materializing Trump’s 60 per cent tariff plans. In 2023, he also published a book “No Trade Is Free: Changing Course, Taking on China, and Helping America’s Workers”, which seems to have provided the blueprint for the second phase of Trump’s war. In the same year that he published his book, Lighthizer also told a House select committee, “I believe that China is the most dangerous threat that we face as a nation … Indeed, it may be the most perilous adversary we’ve ever had”.
What he is doing now, according to a report in Politico, involves preparing legislation to impose permanent tariffs on China.........